The Lean Startup

"Most startups are built to fail. But those failures, according to entrepreneur Eric Ries, are preventable. Startups don't fail because of bad execution, or missed deadlines, or blown budgets. They fail because they are building something nobody wants. Whether they arise from someone's garage or are created within a mature Fortune 500 organization, new ventures, by definition, are designed to create new products or services under conditions of extreme uncertainly. Their primary mission is to find out what customers ultimately will buy. One of the central premises of The Lean Startup movement is what Ries calls "validated learning" about the customer. It is a way of getting continuous feedback from customers so that the company can shift directions or alter its plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than creating an elaborate business plan and a product-centric approach, Lean Startup prizes testing your vision continuously with your customers and making constant adjustments"-- Provided by publisher.

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A great read for those in business or management, as many of the philosophies can be used for many purposes beyond that of the entrepreneur. Geared towards those contemplating a new project or considering forming a startup company, the author favours a 'shoot first, aim later' approach. This can not only greatly accelerate the process, but can prevent many missteps. Its reliance on using feedback during the formation of the startup or product is crucial to its philosophy. By limiting the initial effort and capital at the onset, one can remain flexible. The end result, as enduser feedback has been driving the process, is more likely to be well received by the target market. Although this approach does have its limitations, it is worthwhile and has many applications beyond startups.

manuelaleal
Sep 15, 2015

Shockingly poorly written book designed to sell itself as a product. Not sure WHY this book has been so successful as the "lean" techniques are anything but. The author over-inflates his own success story to justify the advice which is only applicable to large companies with large budgets.
Lacking in basic analytical structure and embarassing at times, this is basically a corporate sales book to sell the author's "expertise" in the lecture circuit.

A poor book, likely written to sell services. Its topic is really product marketing research, and the techniques are not "lean" in that small companies don't have the money nor skilled people nor the mass of customers to do the research in the first place. The first half of the book is written by someone who has made the same irritating grammatical error over and over again. From Chapter 7 onwards, another person has written in a professional style. This is a good example of why not to self-publish - at least without hiring an editor. From there on in the book becomes unwieldy and inapplicable to start-ups.

I found this book helpful in my own work creating training development cycles. Careful preparation is still needed in developing a product, but a key idea is that that product does not have to be perfect. The idea, that a product must be fully formed prior to launch creates two problems. The first is that tweaking every option, and thinking of every possible scenario takes time and resources in the form of research and product testing. Allowing the customer to evaluate the product is cost effective and rapid. The second is that thinking that the perfect product can be developed without feedback of consumers is a flawed approach. Ultimately the product will go to market and may produce different feedback than your own testing.

A few themes stand out for me as valuable from this book:

1. Just start. Develop a minimum viable product and send it to market fast. Let the customer evaluate the product and recommend changes.

There are some really good ideas in this book, which changed the way I thought about "doing innovation". The ideas themselves are really simple but serve to guide what you should be developing versus your beliefs (which are untested and therefore not self-evident as you may think).